Editor’s note: This article is by John Gregg, of the Valley News, in which it was first published on May 29, 2015.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is expected to formally announce his candidacy for president on Saturday in Baltimore, then head directly to Iowa and New Hampshire for campaigning.
In fact, the 52-year-old Democrat, who defeated an incumbent Republican in 2006 and served two terms as governor, will be campaigning in the Upper Valley Sunday evening, with a 7 p.m. appearance at Dartmouth College at the Baker-Berry Library.
Though many New Hampshire Democrats have either endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or remained neutral in the primary, one prominent Upper Valley Democrat is wholeheartedly backing O’Malley.
That would be former Democratic National Committeeman Peter Burling, a former state senator and House Democratic leader from Cornish.
“I’ve watched Gov. O’Malley for the last four or five years. You can’t help but notice that while many of us have talked about how we want to resolve the issue of marriage equality, the minimum wage, job growth, while we’ve been talking, Maryland was doing,” Burling said in a phone interview Thursday.
“I’m not saying he waved his magic wand and it happened, but he was the governor and leader of a state that has accomplished a huge amount,” Burling added.
Burling said his endorsement is not a reflection of any of the other candidates — “I think all of the other Democratic candidates are exceptional,” he asserted — but he does want to see a vibrant New Hampshire primary.
“Everybody I talk to, absolutely everybody I talk to, says we need to have a substantive, clear and unequivocally appropriate primary process,” said Burling, who backed Dick Gephardt in 2004 and John Edwards in 2008. “Nobody wants a coronation, no matter how much they talk about it.”
